Engineers at Rain Bird's Golf Division used computer simulation to reduce the pressure loss in golf course irrigation components by more than 50%. Swing joints are the component that connects the sprinkler to the waterline in an irrigation system. There are several thousand of them in a typical golf course, most having three 90° bends that generate considerable pressure losses. Rain Bird engineers had the idea of reducing energy consumption by improving elbow design. Recognizing that the time and money involved in the build and test approach would be high, they used computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to simulate flow through the elbow. They discovered that increasing the cross-sectional area of each elbow and softening its corners substantially reduced pressure losses.